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Weekend Open Forum: Your next PC upgrade
With the Radeon HD 7000 series trickling out, Ivy Bridge and Kepler bound for mid-2012 and hard drive prices gradually recovering, it seems a great time to begin plotting your next system upgrade. What parts do you plan to buy in the near future? Need more horsepower, storage or RAM? Finally going to splurge on a flash drive or secondary display? Perhaps it's time for a completely fresh build?
Components for Shawn's new X79 test rig
I'm tempted to perform an overhaul this summer, but I think I'll skip this generation and see what 2013 brings. The i5-750 and GTX 460 should hold strong until then. Coincidentally, you are reading this via TechSpot's newly upgraded server, which now has dual quad-core Xeon E5620s, 12GB of RAM and two SSDs in RAID (from dual quad-core Xeon E5335s, 8GB of RAM and 10k RPM SAS drives).
Related Products from Product Finder
AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 PCIe
The AMD ATI Radeon HD 7970 measures 27 cm long (10.6 in), the GPU core is clocked at 925MHz, and the GDDR5 memory operates at the same frequency of 1375MHz (5.5GHz DDR). Still, pairing that frequency with a 384-bit memory bus gives the HD 7970 264GB/s of theoretical bandwidth. The HD 7970 carries 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs, up 33% from 1536 SPUs and 96 TAUs, it's also the first PCI Express 3.0-compatible card.
AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 PCIe
The HD 7950 has 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs. The only other ports are on the I/O panel where you'll find a dual DL-DVI connector, a single HDMI 1.4a port, and two mini-DisplayPort 1.2 sockets. Supports a max resolution of 2560x1600 on up to 3 monitors.
AMD ATI Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB PCIe
The AMD ATI Radeon HD 7770 measures 21cm (8.2in) long, the GPU core runs at 1GHz, it comes loaded with a 1GB frame buffer, the Radeon HD 7770 also carries 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs. The HD 7770 operates at near silence because even under load it only draws 80 watts and as little as 3 watts at idle, courtesy of the ZeroCore Power technology. Last but not least, AMD has included a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector.
HIS Radeon HD 7750 iCooler 1GB GDDR5 PCIe
The Radeon HD 7750 measures only 17cm (6.6in) long and operates at 800MHz. The HD 7750 reference card has a single slot cooler that uses a low-profile heatsink and fan measuring 3cm tall. The heatsink itself is 9.5cm long, 7.5cm wide and is cooled by a 65mm fan. The I/O panel has a dual DL-DVI connector, a single HDMI 1.4a port and a DisplayPort 1.2 socket.
User Comments: 82
Got something to say? Post a comment-
I'm buying a new gaming pc within a few months.
My current one is 2 years old but still really nice. But with the upcoming games i'd like to be completely prepared.
The problem is that i know next to nothing about pc's and upgrading.
It's horrible. I really want to learn this stuff..
And i don't have anyone to ask help from.
Hard to find the right stuff.
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Not a gamer, music streamer or video nut. Mostly photoshop.
My quad core I built a few years back runs CS5 well enough for me.
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A second SSD and a second 6970 :3 ... i just need the mons
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SSD (2x computers) , more memory (DDR3 sodimm in one, DDR2 in the other), and a BD burner, in no specific order. Just need to put the money down to do it, but I'm being patient for the SSDs.
Partly related, I do need to get some samsung drives while they are still available, but that'll be a gash in my wallet.
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I just upgraded my motherboard,CPU and ram so it'll be quite awhile till my next upgrade.which will be a ssd
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I'm currently checking out prices to update MB, CPU & cooler.
Thinking of:
Asus P8Z68-v Pro
Intel i5-2500k
Thermalright Silver Arrow
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Everything .....
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Gpu waterblock
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I think the FT03 Mini is really beautiful without any plastic side vent. If Silverstone would update the original mATX FT03 and remove the plastic side vent - making it as slick and clean as the mini - that would be my next upgrade.
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Seraphim401 said:
All I want is for those god damn core i7 970's to come down in price.
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Marnomancer said:
By the end of March I'll buy more RAM and then wipe my HDD. And then, install Windows 7 Ultimate x64. Once I have enough savings again, I'll buy a new CPU and maybe even a GPU. SSD prices are quite high here yet x_x
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SSD and gaming peripherals
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just ordered some parts!
first I need to replace my intel atom / nvidia ion HTPC with something a little more powerful, so I ordered a AMD Llano A4-3300 and a nice mini itx board: ASUS F1A75-I Deluxe. The only challenge is going to be to get the whole system to 60 Watts max power consumption (as my current power supply is limited to that). The APU already has a TDP of 65W, however I read that you can easily under voltage it,... if things don't workout I'll have to shop for another PSU (and probably case too since it is a special sized PSU in my current enclosure)
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I just did my upgrade, I took my M11x R2 and Converted it to an R3. Now I've got a 2nd gen i7 2617m and an nvidia 540m and a 120GB ssd for a third of the cost of a new M11x R3 laptop.
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every three years I replace my gaming rig its due this year DEC 2012
but with prices the way they are I just am not sure if its going to be a full replacement but what I got so far is:
intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition (Sandy Bridge-E)
AsUs Rampage IV Extreme mother board
Cooler Master's Hyper 212 Evo CPU cooler
the rest is waiting for the video card decision
NVIDIA or ATI by July I should know who has the best of the best .
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@the previous guest concerning the best video card.
Every month Tom's Hardware puts out a new article discussing the current best video cards based on every price range. Just google "Tom's Hardware Graphics Card February 2012" without the quotes.
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I am a gamer so the first time I play a game that I cannot run a max settings is when I upgrade the hardware. I think I'm good for awhile yet:
i7-2600k @ 4.1Ghz
16 GB G.Skill Ripjaw RAM
2-570GTX-OC in SLI
Intel 510 128GB SDD boot drive
2 - WD Velociraptor Datadrives
Win7 Ultimate
I have been looking at the new Asus 27" LED 3D monitor with the Nvidia 3D glasses. But at $500+ it's a little pricey just for 3D and it's a little past the "my wife will notice" threshold.
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Probably just a better graphics card, I want one of the midrange Keplers when they come out this spring. I already have an SSD, i5 750, 16GB DDR3, etc. so there's no point really upgrading anything else.
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My next upgrade will most likely be Haswell (unless AMD improves their CPUs), 16GB of Ram, probably a 240-256GB SSD, whatever next generation $250-300 videocard is out next Spring. Going to reuse my PSU and case.
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I just builty my new computer with an asrock extreme3 gen 3 motherboard with a 2nd generation intel i5 2500k overclocked to 3.8 GHz with 8GB of DDR3 1066 ram, 2 gtx 560 ti in SLI and a terabyte of storage. Only upgrade i will be making soon is a sata III SSD then maybe pick up an i7 ivy bridge when they go down in price.
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Graphics for me...again. Or maybe a new hard drive, I can't say i have fully decided yet.
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3DCGMODELER said:
Thinking of a SSD....
But I do not know if i should, my system is fast.
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0
With a i7-980 6 core chip
24 gig ram
I have an Antec DF-85 Case, with a SSD mount on the top of the Case empty
"Top 2.5" hot-swap SATA (SSD-compatible) drive bay"
Thinking of putting a SSD In it...hmmm... Should I ???
And Another Video card - 560 ti... maybe
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SSD, I'll be upgrading that soon to a 128GB Crucial M4. Also I seem to be running out of RAM when playing BF3 with my 4GB kit, so I'll be upgrading to 8GB soon as well. Besides that I'll probably be upgrading my gtx460 to gtx 760 whenever Nvidia decides to come out with it...
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A little different from the trend, but I just built an htpc in October. My next upgrade will be after windows 8 comes out and I think I'm buying a Toshiba laptop for web surfing, such as reading Techspot. This 2004 Toshiba laptop worked well as I upgraded it from windows xp home to windows xp professional, to use iis to write a website in asp.net. I bought window xp professional during the vista upgrade period, so I also got vista business with it, 2 for the price of one. I never had trouble upgrading to vista as all those vista capable computer users did, except that it required 2g of memory (came with 512m). I had to replace the hard drive not due to it crashing but I think Toshiba used the same firmware as Seagate did when they had their problem, as the hard drive would occasionally become unresponsive requiring a reboot (always on light). The new Toshiba drive still goes into the same mode as did my Seagate that had the firmware problem (very seldom), but now recovers without a reboot after 1 minute.
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I just ordered some parts yesterday from NCIX for the next build
Antec 300 case as it was on for $39 after rebate, I love this case as I already own 3
OCZ petrol 128 GB SSD for $104(After Rebate) with a free LG DVD burner
Acer T231H Touch Screen for Windows 8 for $280.24 Price Matched
I have power supplies and hard drives and am waiting for Ivy-bridge and will buy
i5-3570k -> to wife's i3-530 -->to Media Center E5700 -> Linux Box P4-530J -> retirement
On the fence on upgrading my HD 5770 in my i7-2600 rig to GFX-480 that ncix has on for $249 this week or waiting for next gen nvidia as I want cuda for Adobe After Effects
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